Category Archives: Complications

Just a hemorrhage kind of night

By The Midwife | Published: October 28, 2008

Last night was a very strange night. It wasn’t that busy, and yet, somehow, neither the other midwife nor myself were able to take a break. The pace was very steady. We kept expecting it to settle down, but it never did. Just as we were thinking “oh, as soon as this woman is discharged, […]

Also posted in Birth Stories, Hospitals, Labor and Birth, Midwifery, Vaginal Birth | 4 Comments

“Choosy Mothers Choose Cesareans”

By The Midwife | Published: April 24, 2008

Sometimes, briefly, you feel like you’re making progress, that midwifery outreach is making a difference, that people are becoming more educated and informed, and then you read an article like this one, over at Time Magazine, and you realize that you exist in a small bubble where your philosophy on birth is far different than […]

Also posted in Cesarean Birth, Hospitals, Research | 5 Comments

A Walk to Beautiful

By The Midwife | Published: February 24, 2008

Forget the Oscars (well, not entirely: Go, Juno, go!); the movie I really want to see is A Walk To Beautiful. Having already won several awards at film festivals around the world, the film follows five courageous women as they travel to the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in Ethiopa to find a cure for the […]

Also posted in Issues, Labor and Birth, Midwifery, Women's Health | 5 Comments

Normal birth against all odds

By The Midwife | Published: November 25, 2007

Sometimes birth is not normal. Sometimes there really are complications and problems which need to be dealt with in a hospital setting. Sometimes a medical approach to birth is exactly what’s needed. Sometimes interventions during birth ARE lifesaving. Yesterday was a perfect example of that. I was helping to take care of a woman who […]

Also posted in Birth Stories, Hospitals, Inductions, Labor and Birth | 9 Comments

Birth in developing countries

By The Midwife | Published: October 21, 2007

The BBC has put together an amazing series of articles on birth and maternal mortality in developing countries. This year, at the half-way mark towards the Millenium Goals set for 2015, we’re not even close to reaching the desired 75% reduction in maternal mortality. These articles explore the reasons behind these failures: everything from lack […]

Also posted in Demise, Issues, Labor and Birth, Midwifery, Politics, Pregnancy | 3 Comments

ACNM Annual Meeting: Day Two

By The Midwife | Published: May 26, 2007

After signing off yesterday, I had some lunch then promptly attended three educational sessions in a row, two of which I paged. The first was entitled Cervical Ripening: What We Know and Why A Paradigm Shift is Needed for Reducing the Incidence of Preterm Birth, which focused on how our preterm labor treatments (tocolytics) are […]

Also posted in Breastfeeding, Education, Issues, Labor and Birth, Menopause, Midwifery, News, Politics, Sex and Sexuality | 1 Comment

Premature Rupture of Membranes at Term

By The Midwife | Published: March 3, 2007

I’ve been meaning to post this post for ages, but was never able to finish it during the school year last year. All of this comes from the research project that I worked on last year for 2 semesters as part of my research class, and even though I had to radically alter the goal […]

Also posted in Academia, Education, Hospitals, Journal Articles, Labor and Birth, Research | 7 Comments

A foot!

By The Midwife | Published: February 25, 2007

The strangest vaginal exam I’ve ever had so far happened two nights ago, on my first night-shift clinical rotation, when a woman in early labor came to triage. She was full term, she’d had some light spotting, hadn’t felt the baby move as much as normal in the past 24 hours, and was contracting about […]

Also posted in Clinicals, Education, Labor and Birth | Leave a comment

C-sections: Not so benign after all, eh?

By The Midwife | Published: September 10, 2006

Two studies have recently come out which highlight the risks of cesarean birth for both mothers and babies, particularly primary cesareans with no medical indication. A recent study printed in Birth: Issues in Perinatal Care found that neonatal mortality rates were higher in babies born by cesarean, even after the statistics had been adjusted for […]

Also posted in Cesarean Birth, Research | 2 Comments

One hell of a night

By The Midwife | Published: September 24, 2005

Last night at work was the night of six minute bradycardias. Scary scary night.

Also posted in Cesarean Birth, Hospitals, Labor and Birth | Leave a comment